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South Asia has been severely impacted by COVID-19 – with more than 20,000 deaths, around one million confirmed cases, and many millions of workers unemployed. The pandemic and the need for social distancing have also constrained the responses to cyclones, floods and other climate-related disasters.
Nevertheless, the pandemic also brings opportunities – for directing economic stimulus packages towards investments in disaster-resilient infrastructure and services that will support a greener and more productive future.
COVID-19 has swept the globe. As of June 2020, it had infected more than 11 million people, and killed around 533,000. South Asia accounted for around 8.5 per cent of confirmed cases and 4.2 per cent of the deaths. And the economic fallout arising from lockdowns and social distancing has pushed the sub-region’s economies into recession.
From March 2020, governments across South Asia imposed national lockdowns and other stringent measures to contain the spread of the pandemic and save lives. But this also disrupted supply chains and caused sudden drops in demand, pushing national economies into recessionary spirals. In South Asia, COVID-19-related measures could drive more than 130 million people into extreme poverty.
Converging crises
At the same time, families struggling to cope with COVID-19 remain exposed to climaterelated disasters. In May 2020 India and Bangladesh were struck by Amphan – the most powerful cyclone in 20 years, which claimed over 100 lives and destroyed the homes and livelihoods of thousands of families. Then in June, cyclone Nisarga hit the west coast of India. In addition, during the spring there had been swarms of desert locusts in South-West Asia. And in June there were floods in the Indian state of Assam.
Climate-related disasters have different risk pathways from COVID-19, but they can intersect and converge with the pandemic in complex and destructive ways. Many communities are exposed to both, and the long-term consequences can be similar – damage to people’s health and livelihoods and their prospects of escaping poverty.
How can governments respond to these cascading and converging crises? Faced with the pandemic, many countries declared states of emergency that closed schools, offices, places of worship and restaurants and locked down other public places. Many activities and business subsequently restarted but with limitations on activities that involve physical contacts or movements of people. These restrictions have also applied to disaster response measures which have also needed to ensure social distancing.